


Your Name Upon My Skin

by secondalto



Series: Written in Flesh and Blood [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Prompt Fic, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Author Regrets Nothing, What Have I Done, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondalto/pseuds/secondalto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up on his eighteenth birthday with TWO names on his wrist. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Name Upon My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> To give credit where credit is due, this is very much inspired by [this](http://krumcake.tumblr.com/post/84983728019/honestly-im-really-only-interested-in-soulmate%22) post on tumblr, from user krumcake. It was linked to me by the filthy enabler, Rainne (who also did her usual stand up beta work) while I was in a fic induced haze. I got ideas that I had to write down immediately. There is more coming, don't worry. A second part and LOTS of side stories, cause boy do I have headcanon. If you've seen the Cap movie, you know why the warning is there. If you think I need more tags, feel free to suggest them.

The very first recorded incident of a soul mark dates back to the late thirteenth century. Mary Margaret O’Halloran woke on her eighteenth birthday with the name Matthew Goode scrawled across her wrist. When she went to show her mother, Mrs. O’Halloran screamed and proclaimed it the work of the devil. It took only two days for the church elders to agree and sentence young Mary to death. 

Her life was spared when on the third day, the day of her execution; a young man rode into the village asking for Meg O’Halloran. His wrist bore her name. The priest sent word to his bishop, who wrote to the archbishop, who composed a letter to the Holy Father asking for guidance. By the time a response came back, several more instances of soul marks were recorded, happening to mostly young people on their eighteenth birthdays, but occasionally to an older person, matched with the eighteen year old.

The papers remark on the mark’s ability to show a persons preferred name (such as young Mary being called Meg) as opposed to their given name. To this day no one has come up with an explanation for the marks.

*~*~*~*~*

Steven Grant Rogers has been waiting for his eighteenth birthday with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. He knows, with absolute certainty, that he will have a specific name written on his skin. He knows this because his best friend, the person he’s been half in love with, has had his name on their arm for just over a year now. Bucky Barnes has Steve’s name inscribed on the inside of his left arm, just above the elbow in a calligraphic script that is beautiful.

Bucky’s ma had thrown him out when she saw the name. There were only rumors that this kind of thing happened, but Steve’s name in bold black letters was proof. They were shown more proof when they moved into their new neighborhood: the one for so called “deviants”.

Their neighbor, Sally, had laughed and laughed.

“Oh, honey, this happens all the time,” she’d said, serving them coffee in her wildly decorated living room. “Look at this.” She rolled up her sleeve, showing them her wrist. The name Bob Orwell was scrawled across it.

Bucky shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“There is when I normally look like this,” Sally countered, taking off her wig, wiping at her make up. “I was born Isaac Monroe. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I saw Bobby’s mark read ‘Sally’. That’s who I really am.”

“Wow,” Steve breathed. “So… you mean… if, no, when I get Buck’s name it will be okay?”

“It’ll mean he’s your soul mate, Stevie my boy. But most people out there will never think its okay. I don’t know if they ever will. Come, let me put my face back on and show you how to cover a name up if it appears somewhere visible.”

*~*~*~*~*

There are cases of people having more than one soul mark in a lifetime. A name appears on the eighteenth birthday, they meet, and one person dies. Then years later another name is written on the skin of the mate left behind. Those people who get two soul marks in their life are considered blessed. It’s not often that a person has two great loves in a lifetime.

*~*~*~*  

The pain nearly makes Steve scream. Instead he bites his pillow, his whole body shaking, sweat pouring off of him as it sears through him. By the time it’s over, he’s breathless and Bucky is saying his name over and over, stroking his hair. He’s too exhausted to look at the name.

The next morning Bucky murmurs for him to go back to sleep, but Steve elbows him.

“It’s my birthday, jerk. I wanna see where your name is,” he huffs, wiggling out from under Bucky’s arm. 

He takes a breath and looks down at his wrists. There it is, on the right, just under the palm, in plain black block letters; Bucky Barnes. Then he gasps. Under Bucky’s name, in a flowing blue italic, is another name. Peggy Carter.

“Buck, what the hell does this mean?” He shoves his wrist under Bucky’s nose. Bucky sniffs, rubs his eyes and props himself up on an elbow before looking at Steve’s wrist. 

“The fuck, Steve? Two at once?” Bucky sits all the way up, clutching at Steve’s wrist. 

“Ow, Buck, not so hard,” he winces, pulling back. Bucky lets go immediately.

“Steve, this is, God, I don’t know,” Bucky says, running a hand through his hair. “No one gets two names at once! No one!”

“Well apparently I do!” Steve shouted back. “Look, Buck. I have no idea who this Peggy is, but she can’t be… she’ll never be more to me than you are.”

“Someone out there thinks otherwise!” Bucky points to the name on Steve’s wrist. 

“But I love you. Buck, it’s always been you.” Steve is on the verge of tears.

Bucky pulls him close, kissing him soft and sweet. Steve surges into the kiss, groping for Bucky. Bucky soothes Steve, touching him, stroking him. Steve lets Bucky take him, needing to feel that closeness, their connection. He doesn’t care who this Peggy is. Bucky is the only one for him.

*~*~*~*

Peggy Carter stares down in disbelief at the young boy—well she can’t call him that, he is twenty -four after all—who stands before her.  When she’d gotten the name Steve Rogers written on her forearm, she thought it sounded like such a strong name, a good name. But this… this… boy was not what she thought the universe intended for her to have.

She feels like she needs to pack up and go back home. But that would just prove everyone right, that she doesn’t belong here. So she stiffens her spine and acts coolly towards Steve. Until she gets to know him. He’s quick minded, getting to the flag by dismantling the pole. He’s brave for sure, throwing himself on a grenade. She wonders what makes a boy, _man_ , tick like that. 

They’re driving to the secret base. Erskine has decided they’re going to go through with the project, that Steve is their man. She sits stiffly next to him, trying not to feel awkward as she towers above him. He’s pointing out places where he was beaten up.

“Did you have something against running away?” she asks. It’s not very hard to imagine all the physical trauma he must have suffered through.

“You start running; they’ll never let you stop.” He’s earnest as he says this. He believes it with every fiber of his being. “You stand up, push back, can’t say no forever, right?”

She looks at him with a small smile. “I know a little of what that’s like, to have every door shut in your face.”

They walk into the base together. She watches carefully as he climbs into the ridiculous machine. She tries not to feel anything as they start the procedure. Then he’s screaming. She’s jumping up, telling Stark to stop the process. She can’t abide that he’s suffering. He may not be the man she imagined, but he’s a good man and he doesn’t deserve to die.

“I can do this!” Steve shouts.

Howard cranks up the machine and soon it’s over. As the machine opens and Erskine helps Steve out, Peggy’s breath catches. This is a man that… well, she touches him, quickly and not sure why. It’s then that she notices the two lines of script on his wrist. The soul mark survived the transformation. She’d known Steve had been worried about it. But she’s never seen anyone with two marks before. How can that be?

Peggy can’t find out. Too much happens. Erskine is dead, she’s being shipped back across the ocean, Steve…she wonders if she’ll ever see him again.

*~*~*~*~

There are few certainties that are known when it comes to the soul mark. They will generally appear somewhere on the arm, though there are recorded instances of it appearing elsewhere. Eighty percent of the population will get their mark on their eighteenth birthday. For the other twenty percent, most receive their mark when their soul mate comes of age, or is available (if said soul mate is fated to have two). The instances of people never receiving a soul mark are less than one percent. When a person’s soul mate dies, the mark disappears. There are those who say the mark fades over time, but overall it is there, then it is not.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Steve has always liked Peggy, from the moment she socked Private Hodge in the jaw. He can see why she might be his soul mate. But his heart has always been Bucky’s, since practically forever. Part of him stubbornly refuses to think he could fall for Peggy too, but he’s seen stranger things happen. He’s strong now, has a body to equal the passion in his heart. 

When he hears that Bucky has been captured, may be dead, he can’t fathom it. He dares a glance at his wrist, still sees Bucky’s name, plain as day. He’ll be forever grateful to Peggy for getting him out there, letting him find Bucky.  For the last four months he’s felt useless, like he wasn’t living up to his promise to Erskine. When he finds him in the lab, he’s relieved, releasing him from the table.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, disoriented. Steve pushes Bucky’s sleeve up, sees his name still there.

“Yeah, it’s me. I thought you were dead.” He helps Bucky up and off the table, sneaking in a quick kiss.

“I thought you were smaller.” Only Bucky would be sassing him after getting off a torture table.

They make it out of Austria, barely. It’s going to take a few days to get back to the camp where Phillips and Peggy are. Steve manages to tell Bucky about meeting Peggy in quick hushed tones one night in their shared tent.  Bucky isn’t happy that she’s a real person, and that she’s captured Steve’s attention, if not his heart.

“Buck,” Steve sighs, as they hold each other in the dark. “I don’t think it’s love. I don’t know that it can be, but I really like her. When we get out of this….”

“Think you mean if, Stevie. This ain’t Central Park on a Saturday night, this is war.” Bucky is warm under Steve’s arm, and it feels weird to have their usual positions reversed.

“When we get out,” Steve emphasizes. “We can talk about it, maybe make it work.”

When they get to the camp, everyone’s cheering. Peggy walks right over to him, after Phillips has had his say. She looks right at him, fire in her eyes.

“You’re late,” she states.

He grins and holds up the broken transponder. “Couldn’t call my ride.”

He doesn’t see Bucky’s fallen expression behind him, just hears the cheering of the men.

The newsreels show Peg’s picture in his compass, but if anyone were to really look at it, they’d find Bucky’s right behind hers. Steve feels like he’s being forced to choose. Right now it would be Bucky, but he knows the world isn’t kind to that kind of love. So he shows it that it’s Peg. Then Bucky falls.

Steve watches forever as the train chugs on. It’s Morita who finally pulls him back into the car. He keeps looking at his wrist. Bucky’s name is still there, bold and black as ever. They tell him it will fade in time. But if it’s still there… he’s still alive. It has to be that way.

They drink to Bucky’s memory. Peggy’s joining him and he’s telling her he can’t get drunk.

“It’s not your fault, you know.” She takes his hand, his right hand, in hers. She turns it over, pulling the sleeve down just so far. She tries not react when she sees the two names, but he hears it anyway.

“I can’t explain it,” Steve says, pouring himself another shot. “I knew, I just knew, that when I turned eighteen, I’d have Buck’s name. He has… had mine. Didn’t care that it wasn’t done. I love…loved…love him. Then I wake up and there’s yours right under his.”

“I always thought you would be British,” she says plainly. “I wasn’t expecting this tiny, underfed American to come waltzing into my life.”

He laughs at that. “You’re a swell dame, Peg. I think…we might….”

“We might just. The war isn’t over yet. I’m not him, Steve. I won’t be.  But if we let it….”

“Maybe,” he says. They finish the bottle in silence.

As the plane goes down, Steve keeps his eyes on his names. It’s been about a week and Bucky’s is still there. He thinks of Peg and the dance he promised her. Steve thinks he could have made it work between the three of them.

Then he doesn’t think anymore.

*~*~*~*~*

Peggy kisses him to give him courage, confidence. There is a lot of promise in that kiss.  It takes weeks for his name to fade from her arm. She never talks about it. She keeps the picture of him from before the transformation. It’s to remind her that people can surprise you, if you look beyond the surface. It also reminds her of what could have been had circumstances be different.

*~*~*~*~

Margaret “Peggy” Carter becomes a pioneer and founder of the anti-soul mark movement. She shocks the world by marrying Lord James Falsworth. Falsworth, whose first wife died at a young age, was a former Howling Commando, who worked with Captain America. He was not as vocal in the movement as Carter, but always lends her his full support.

“I’ve found love without a mark,” says Carter. “I don’t need a mystically written name to tell me what I feel. No one does. If you find happiness with the person whose name you have, good for you. But a name means nothing. I know people out there whose soul mate,” Carter nearly sneers at this word, “is abusive, is neglectful or otherwise a nasty human being. We need to stand up and say ‘I can be happy’. I encourage people to follow their hearts.”

When pressed about rumors that she had Captain America’s name on her at some point, Carter refuses to comment.

 


End file.
